There will be 700 Million Pirated e-Books in 2018

Many publishers often think their current Digital Rights Management solutions are enough to combat e-book piracy. This is why the vast majority end up using Digital Watermarks or Adobe DRM in order to make it hard to upload material you have purchased to file sharing websites. Rightscorp, likely the biggest anti-piracy player in movies, music and television shows told Good e-Reader that “we estimate that there were 500 million e-Books distributed in the United States on peer-to-peer networks in 2013 and this will grow to 700 million by 2018.”

Rightscorp has developed digital loss prevention technology that tracks copyright infringement and ensures that owners and creators are rightfully paid for their IP. They developed extensive tracking analytics that allows them to see what content is being distributed through Bittorrent and file sharing sites and then goes after the people involved. In April 2014 they made the company decision to market their services to the publishing industry and actively go after eBook pirates.

Business is booming for Rightscorp right now. The company has just announced that it has closed over 170,000 cases of copyright infringement to date, up 40,000 since November 2014, representing an approximate 30% growth within a 2 month period. They have received settlement payments from subscribers of more than 200 ISPs and has approval to collect on over 1.5 million copyrights.

We are firing on all cylinders and have been able to consistently generate growth on many of our operational metrics,” said Christopher Sabec, CEO of Rightscorp. “The latest count includes more than 1,000 cases closed on the Comcast and Google Fiber networks, which control the largest markets in the U.S. It seems clear that the entire industry is now beginning to recognize our solution as the most effective in preserving the rights of copyright holders – artists and content owners. We will continue to work hard to protect those who create and own intellectual property.”

Overall, the publishing industry is not really concerned with eBook piracy. Many of the top companies such as HarperCollins, Hachette, S&S and Penguin have told me that piracy is a minor blip on the radar and does not hamper sales to any discernible degree. They all admit it is an extreme minority of tech savvy individuals and statistically people who pirate eBooks tend to be the biggest purchasers of digital content. There has even been some notable authors such as Tim Ferris that harnessed the power of Bitorrent to promote his book, the 4 Hour Chef. He recently said “Torrent conversion is NUTS. Of 210,000 downloads earlier this week, more than 85,000 clicked through “Support the Author” to the book’s Amazon page. We all had to triple and quadruple check that to believe it.

Sales of eBooks reached $3 billion at the end of 2012, up from $68 million in 2008 according to a recent article posted onYahoo! Finance. The article also cited that Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, said that “Kindle owners buy more books now than they did before they owned an e-Reader”. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates “consumer eBooks will drive $8.2 billion in sales by 2017, surpassing projected print book sales, which it thinks will shrink by more than half during that period.”

Rightscorp has not seen the traction in the e-Book space as they have with other media. The company has told me that “While Rightscorp has closed some cases with e-Books, we do not yet have large catalogs of e-Books like we have with movies, television and music.”

This goes to show that publishers believe in the power of DRM to such a large degree that they don’t really care to go after e-book pirates at this stage in the game. They are more concerned with Amazon having too much power in e-book sales and distribution and trying to find alternative avenues to generate revenue, such as e-Book subscription websites like Scribd and Oyster.

Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about electronic readers and technology for the last four years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the Huffington Post, CNET and more. Michael frequently travels to international events such as IFA, Computex, CES, Book Expo and a myriad of others. If you have any questions about any of his articles, please send Michael Kozlowski an email to michael@goodereader.com

I find this article laughable as it conveniently ignores the fact that the very company giving out these statistics is the very one that stands to profit from it’s scaremongering tactics. Also whilst Rightscorp claims to have settled 170,000 cases last year they don’t say how many of those so called settlements were dismissed court cases as it seems that if instead of paying them people say take me to court they get the case dismissed rather than face legal scrutiny.

To me this raises a big red flag on this company who despite their claims actually lost $2.1M last year.

Jasmine McAlpine (pseudonym)

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a sales pitch–not a solution. Copyrights protect the income from sales of intellectual property. Copyrights of literary works are de facto licenses of the works for personal use, scientific use, etc. (www.copyright.gov). DRM is a tremendous inhibitor to sales and satisfaction. Customers of literary works are not thieves.
The anti-piracy services of Rightscorp are another sales pitch. Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are proprietary collections of users. The internet is a public network of client computers. Piracy can be achieved very easily on P2P networks, but the internet is where sales are really made. There are two important issues.
P2P networks are very limited in size compared to the internet. Intellectual property doesn’t get to customers well on P2P networks. Customers typically make purchases using the simplest method–the internet. Personal use is the hallmark of P2P networks. Additional distribution of literary works on P2P networks represents personal use, advertising, and artistic exposure.
Sales of pirated intellectual property are obvious on the internet. Distribution of intellectual property beyond financial sales existed before electronic distribution was invented. The criminal justice system is the tool for authors and publishers to use for the rectification of theft of electronic files. Reputations of authors and publishers extends with their literary works. Literary works generate interest in future sales and build the publishing economy when they are in the hands of customers and their friends.
DRM and anti-piracy technologies are wasted money. Lawyers and justice are cheaper in the end. Fear is the tool that protects the freedom of speech.